A sweet, light, low angst romance. 3.5 stars but rounding up to 4 because...Ryan!! He was swoony and dreamy and slightly broken...and he stutters. In other words, book boyfriend crack!!!

I really enjoyed this book! Sweet romance with well developed characters! Highly recommend!

Favorite Quote:

“Why me?” he says, as I bite on his shoulder so I don’t scream. “Because you’re the best person I know.” And then I’m dissolving into particles, and he’s muffling his own cries.

This is the third book in a series and I strongly recommend that you read the previous two, especially book one. The hero from this book, Ryan, was featured in the first book and did not end up with the girl. I think reading that book gives you a better understanding of the story, Ryan’s struggles, and root for him and his HEA even more. It’s also hard to talk about this book without making reference to the first book.

As I mentioned, Ryan lost the girl in book one. But he comes back and is mostly over that ordeal. He knows he wasn’t the right man for the previous women. When he returns from a year teaching in Japan he is still working to be independent from his brother, Jude. Jude raised Ryan and is having a hard time letting go. Even though Ryan wants his independence, he also longs for the love that only a family can bring. Like many of us, he is full of contradictions.

Eva, the heroine, is slightly older than Ryan. She has a son, Diego who is 6. Eva struggles with how to be a mom, an ex-wife, and girlfriend/lover to Ryan. She’s a little prickly, but once she decides to give herself a chance with Ryan, she opens up quickly. Eva is too involved in her ex-husband’s life and I found it frustrating.

I loved the author’s prose. Her word choices and descriptions really kept me in the story, even when I felt it was missing something. Here are some quotes that really hit me.

I feel like that too, sometimes, but on the inside. Like I’ve stitched the pieces of my heart and soul back together. They might be a mess, but they’re functioning, and I’d like to use them to their fullest.

“I hate to ask, but can you help me move the couch?” The couch? As my heart lies on the ground bleeding, she wants me to move furniture?

I was slightly underwhelmed by the story overall, I felt like it was missing some of the foundation between Eva and Ryan. There isn’t a specific thing that I felt didn’t fit in the story, I just wanted more of their story especially the courting/wooing stage. I also know that I really, really loved book one, like 5 star love, and was really looking forward to Ryan’s story and I may have set my expectations exceptionally high. The author writes such emotional story lines without being over the top angsty and I love it. Ryan is one of the best men ever. He is kind and loving and lovable. He loves his brother so fiercely. Ryan and Jude display a level of love and respect for each other and the people they love that made me all warm and fuzzy. The biggest negative is that the sexy times are very short and/or off page and were more about the tension & build-up than actual sex.

I really enjoyed this book. And it had a top notch epilogue that helped close the series. I recommend this book, but strongly encourage you to read book one first.

Grade: B

Tell Me That You're Mine is book three in the Tell Me series. It can be read as a standalone. If you read Tell Me How This Ends (Book 1), you'll know Ryan. This is Ryan's story. I was excited to read Ryan's story. Ryan is a great sweet character. I was so hoping he would get his happy ever after. I loved Ryan. He makes a great book boyfriend. Eva is a string character. She has a son and a not so nice ex-husband. She fights her feeling for Ryan because she's not sure she's ready for another relationship. I loved these two and their story.

Great book addition to the series! Could not have been more perfect!

After reading the plot for the story, I immediately wanted to read more since it seemed like a nice set up for a romance filled with push and pull. With that in mind, the story felt a lot more like Ryan's story than Eva's. There's nothing wrong with that, of course and I enjoyed the book and its characters. It only took a matter of a few days to finish since the story was an easy, kick back and relax kind of read. My only struggle was that the pacing felt very quick, especially in the beginning when I was trying to wrap my heart around the attraction between Ryan and Eva.

From the moment they met, it was established through their internal thoughts that they found one another attractive, but I wish their attraction would have built more. It felt like I was being told, rather than shown. Next thing I knew they were jumping in bed and I was still trying to figure them out. I think there were missed opportunities in the beginning to really convince me as a reader that they were falling for each other instead of just being told they were. I just couldn't help but want the knob to be turned up a bit more on the feels factor. I WANT those warm fuzzies. Lol.

Aside from the romance, the pacing in general felt fast and jumpy at times. I don't need a play by play of what's happening, but I do want certain details to feel more natural. For example, when Eva bumps into Jude and Lizzie at the restaurant. One moment she sits down to join them and the next she's pushing aside her plate of food... um, they ordered food and sat through an entire meal? When did that happen? It might seem silly, but sometimes a lot of small details like that can add up and make a story feel less streamlined.

Another thing that I craved a bit more of was the descriptions of the characters surroundings. I'm from the Bay Area, so for myself it's easier to picture the places the author mentioned, but for someone who is not familiar, I think it would be harder to imagine. A place like the Bay Area, especially the San Jose area, is so rich with culture, food, music, hustle and bustle, that it can almost play as it's own living character in a story. I wish the author would have brought that element to life a bit more for the readers that aren't familiar with the area.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read and I'm happy with the way it ended for everyone involved.

4 “More Ryan, thank you & please” Stars

ARC via NetGalley.

Thank you, Swerve!!!


Oh, yes, this is Ryan's story. And, oh, yes, I'm still so very much in love with this guy. And, oh, yes, he's fictional, but who cares?

I met Ryan McCallister last year when I read Victoria de La O's amazing debut, Tell Me How This Ends, and dude made me feel. If you haven't read that book yet, then I must warn you: this review might spoiler the ending of book 1, so go read that lesson on how to write love triangles and then come back to this review.

Warning: SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST BOOK!

Back to Ryan now. In Book #1, I rooted for him (and for his brother, but let's pretend that didn't happen, so we don't hurt his feelings), and I felt so bad for him in the end that I wanted to hug him and bring him home with me. But I couldn't because Ryan moved to the other side of the world.

That little problem is solved in Tell me That You're Mine (and the significance of the title for Ryan and everything that has happened to him since the first book just hit me right now, and my heart is breaking again *snifs*). Ryan is back, and he's even more adorable than I remembered him to be.

A little nerdy, a lot sexy and equal parts sweet and angst, Ryan won me over with each new page. The more I read about him, the more I remembered why I'd been torn between Ryan and his brother (Jude is normally more my book-boyfriend type, with all the brooding he does). Ryan got to me so many times in this book. Whenever he interacted with Jude, or helped Diego, or thought about his father. Thing is, NOT falling in love with Ryan is almost impossible.

So it wasn't much of a surprise that Eva couldn't resist him.

I have to say that my love for Eva came slowly. It took me more than I'm used to with Victoria de La O's characters to fully connect with her, which also suprised me because she's Latina, and I'm always happy to see Latinx representation in books.

I can't exactly point out why I didn't fall as madly in love with Eva as I did with Lizzie or Sam, from the previous books. Maybe the romance moved a little too fast. Maybe she was a little too closed off at first. But once I got to know Eva better, I could see why Ryan had fallen for her.

Eva was a strong woman in many senses. There was such a mature vibe to her that I sometimes forgot she wasn't even in her thirties. It had less to do with the fact that she had a six-year-old son, and more with the way she faced her problems.

In a sense, I feel like I was Jude in regards to Evan and Ryan's relationship.

I didn't initially think Eva was good enough for my precious Ryan, but once I saw who she was and how she treated the people around her, then I was all in.

I think Eva's situation with her ex-husband was what did it for me. It was portrayed in a heartbreaking way because of how respectful the author was to these character and their history. It would've been so easy to turn her ex into a villain, but Victoria de La O once again showed me she was better than that. She made me feel for Eva, who was torn between helping the man she once loved and finding a place for her new love in a her messy life. She even made me feel for the ex.

And as a I started falling for Eva, her relationship with Ryan started making more sense to me. I started smiling when they acted cute together, and anticipating their love scenes. It was a different experience from what I had with the first two books, but it was worth it. So, in the end, I was Jude again and gave Eva and Ryan my blessing.

Speaking of ending, fans of this series will love that special extra chapter that takes place in the future. No spoilers here, because you'll want to experience it the way I did, but I have to say that that extra chapter touched me deeply. For me, the Tell Me series ended with the thing that made it so special to start with: beautifully written characters showing the kind of emotion that left the pages of the book and tugged at my heart, giving me all the feels. I'm going to miss them, but I'm ready for whatever Victoria de La O comes up with next.

YES!!! We finally get Ryan’s story!

As a blogger, I LOVE finding new authors. Victoria De La O is one of those authors. Her Tell Me series has been a delight to read. I have fallen in love with each and every one of her characters and their stories.

In Tell Me That You’re Mine we finally get to read Ryan McCallister’s HEA. I have to tell you that I loved Ryan in Tell Me How This Ends. His story broke my heart. I was not so happy when I found out that Tell Me Not to Go would not be about him. But in Tell Me That You’re Mine the Tell Me series is wrapped up into a nice, pretty bow. It was the perfect series for Victoria De La O’s debut.

In Tell Me That You’re Mine, Ryan ends up renting a room/ space in Eva Romero’s house. We meet Eva in Tell Me Not to Go. Side note… I feel in love with Eva’s son!!! So, when I realized that Ryan would end up with Eva and her son, I was swooning! I settled in and enjoyed the ride.

You can totally read Tell Me That You’re Mine as a standalone. That being said, I wouldn’t. I don’t think that you would appreciate Ryan or Eva and the other support characters as much as you would if you read the series in the order that it was written.

Victoria, you have an amazing writing career ahead of you if all of your future books are this good. Thank you for these characters. They hold a special place in my heart.

TELL ME THAT YOU'RE MINE by Victoria De La O is book three in the series and the first two books are a must read before this one in order to understand the story of Ryan and where he has been and what he has been through.

Ryan was the brother that was cast aside in the first book as the girl he fell in love with fell in love with his brother and the girl chose the brother to be with forever.  Now a year later coming home from Japan, Ryan needs to find a way to move on from his girl living and loving his brother, living in the same house with his brother is not going to work, so  finding an apartment is the number one thing that needs to get done, and this is where Ryan meets Eva and his heart is hooked from the moment they meet.  Eva though has walls created and son too look out for,  so her heart is not so easily caught as Ryan's was.

Eva and Ryan's story is absolutely beautiful and is a must read, it will send your emotions all over the place, this final book was a great way to end the series that started as a love triangle, cant wait to see what this author gives us next.


I would give TELL ME THAT YOU'RE MINE 4/5 stars

tell me that you're mine is the final book in the tell me series, and finds ryan mcallister coming home after spending a year in japan, recovering from the events in book 1. being away from his brother has been good for him. even though it has put a strain on his relationship with jude, ryan needed the time away to become his own person. and coming back home isn't really an option now that jude and lizzie are living together.

when he wrangles a studio apartment from eva romero, the last thing he expects is the zing of chemistry between them. she's a couple years older than him. and as a divorced, single mom she's not up for a fling. her life is complicated. falling into bed with her renter would only make it more complicated. but for the first time since her divorce, she wants to try.

even though she can't help thinking that no matter what she and ryan have will only ever be temporary. she's older than him. she's got a six-year-old. her ex has a borderline personality disorder that she feels responsible about managing. she's carrying all this guilt about not sticking things out with her ex, that she keeps sabotaging what can happen with ryan.

and the thing about ryan is that all he wants is for someone to choose him. he wants someone to love him. someone to put him first the way he keeps putting everyone else in his life first. he may not always understand where eva is coming from, but he tries. he's such a good guy. i really loved him as a character. i haven't actually read the earlier novels in the series, and i think it would be hard for me to read book 1 knowing he loses out on the girl, even though i love him with eva.

4.5 stars


Tell Me That You’re Mine by Victoria De La O was the perfect ending to her Tell Me series. This series must be read in order, as Ryan has a part in Tell Me How It Ends, book 1. I loved Ryan in the first book, absolutely loved him, but totally agree in how the first book ended. Now he gets his own story.

It’s been one year since Ryan left to give his brother and Lizzie their chance at love. Though he knows leaving was the best decision, he is now ready to come home. But home has changed for him. Jude and Lizzie are happy and in love and living together in his old home. His friends have moved on and he must now find his place in this new normal.

We first met Eva and her son in Tell Me Not To Go, book 2 in the series. She was Jeff’s landlord and now that he has moved out, he recommends Ryan as a renter. Eva is a divorced single mom that is barely surviving, much less living. Her son is her number one priority. But she is still a woman with needs and desires.

One look at each other and Ryan and Eva know the other is trouble. Ryan is twenty-four and has his whole life ahead of him. Working to get his master degree in education. His dream is to be a teacher. Eva is twenty-seven and has way too many responsibilities to even consider Ryan as a real option. Her son, her job, her troubled ex-husband who still wants his family back are enough to scare any man away. There are just too many obstacles between them.

But when they are together, nothing else matters. Ryan was so sweet and caring. He grew to care about both Eva and Diego so much. He understood what being with Eva meant and accepted it, because he wanted her in his life. Eva struggled to balance life between her needs, Diego’s needs and her ex-husband’s needs. Where does Ryan fit in all that? Throw in Jude and his expectations of what life should be for Ryan and the obstacles just continue to stack up. Can they find a way to be together?

This was such a sweet story. I loved Eva and Ryan so much. They were so good together, but really struggled to find their way to each other. I loved seeing Ryan finally come into his own and find who he was and what he wanted. And Eva was so strong and caring, but also had to learn to put what she wanted first to find her way to what was best for her and Diego.

I loved this series so much. The characters, the stories and the feels just drew me in and had me wanting more. Tell Me That You’re Mine was a perfect ending to this series. And that epilogue brought it all together and left me as a reader so happy and content! I am looking forward to reading more from this author.

I was so excited to see this book coming out and happily the author did not disappoint with Ryan's story! I loved this book so much. After the heartbreak Ryan went through in the prior books (although this is the third in the series the author gives enough of the backstory for you to enjoy without reading the prior 2) I wanted him to find his own HEA. He definitely does and this is his story. Of course nothing comes easy but Ryan and Eva find their way in the wonderful story.

This book is very well written and you'll fall in love with these characters. I highly recommend this book to everyone.